Big data technology will take longer to reach mainstream adoption than previously thought, according to analyst company Gartner’s latest Hype Cycle for emerging technologies.

Gartner’s Hype Cycle tracks the progress of technologies from the first peak of hype, through the inevitable crash, then onto what it calls ‘the plateau of productivity’, when mainstream adoption begins to take off.

In 2012, Gartner estimated that big data would take between two and five years before the technology reached that ‘plateau of productivity’. But in the 2013 Hype Cycle, published today, Gartner has changed its estimate for the time it will take big data to reach that plateau to between five and ten years.

There are two trends driving big data down into the ‘trough of disillusionment’, Gartner said. The first is that “tools and techniques are being adopted ahead of learned expertise and any maturity/ optimization, which is creating confusion.

The second is “the inability to spot big data opportunities by the business, formulate the right questions and execute on the insights“.

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